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Friday, August 16, 2013

The ten second barrier

Pei Meng Zhang -- 10.00 in the 100m in the semis at the IAAF World Championships 2013. Same time as Christophe Lemaitre, who was allowed to advance ahead of Zhang. At 6"1 190 Zhang is pretty big for a sprinter. With his skinny upper body I'm guessing he's clean ;-)

Given the wind reading Zhang has the best performance yet for an Asian, slightly ahead of Koji Ito (also 10.00, 1998). On the world all-time list this is around 100th best among all individuals. Lemaitre is the fastest European, with PR 9.92 (about 35th best). He's a very unusual 6"4 160 (at least according to Wikipedia).

I looked up "Peiming Zhang" but found nothing. Turns out his name is Peim*e*ng Zhang not Peim*i*ng Zhang, with the "e" in place of the "i". Would be great if you could make the correction, Steve. Thanks!

Lemaitre ran an actual 9.92 in 2011, track "adjustments" for other sprinters be damned. Lemaitre was undoubtedly advanced over Zhang due to his Silver and Bronze medals earned at the 2011 World Championship in Daegu.

Jamaican sprinters are almost certainly all descended at least in part from a very limited number of West African tribes: the Akan, Igbo, Fon, and Kongo peoples.

Jamaican coaches scout for talented runners from a very young age to sign them up for contracts and training and the same thing is happening in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Congo. It's way beyond merely better nutrition now and the same thing is happening among the East African tribes for long-distance runners. All the top male and female distance runners are recruited and trained at a young age from Kenyans and the occasional Ethiopian from tribes originating in the 7000 foot highlands of the Great Rift Valley.

Whites still mange to be somewhat competitive in middle distance events.

The 17 year old Japanese sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu ran 10.01 (+.9) this year which is a World Junior record (which were set by men one year older). If he breaks the 10 second barrier this year or next he will be the youngest person to go sub 10 (breaking Yohan Blake's age record). He already owns the world Youth record for the 100m (10.19) breaking his own record set earlier this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihide_Kiryu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcUDtvn4sx4

Personally, I think just about all world class sprinters are on drugs nowadays. I think Kiryu can run faster because if you look at his race, he did not have much leg lift in the last 40 meters. This is usually because of a lack of strength (upper, mid and lower body). As he gets older and stronger, he should be able to run relaxed and have higher leg lift in the last half of the race and thus run much faster.

I personally think Chinese sprinters are much more gifted than Japanese simply because Chinese sprinters seem to have longer legs to torso ratio.